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ENITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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BE PATRIOTS? 



An Historical Study 



BY 



REV. DR. ISAAX SCHWAB 



(339 East 52d Street, New York.i 



PRICE, 25 CENTS. 



NEW YORK : 

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL OF THE HEBREW ORPHAN ASYLUM, 
76TH Street, between Third and Lexington Avenues. 
1878. 



CAN JEWS BE PATRIOTS? 



An Historical Study 

BY 

REV. DR. ISAAC SCHWAB, 

(339 East 52d Street, New York.) 




NEW YORK : 

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL OF THE HEBREW ORPHAN ASYLUM, 
76TH Street, between Third and Lexington Avenues. 
1878. 



.53 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, 

By Kev. Db. ISAAC SCHWAB, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 



CAN JEWS BE PATRIOTS? 



Are the Jews able to love and cling to the country of their 
birth or adoption ? 

Professor Goldwin Smith, of England, denies it It was 
during England's political complications with Russia that he, 
in an article entitled: "England's Abandonment of the Pro- 
tectorate of Turkey," expressed himself: "They have now 
been everywhere made voters ; to make them patriots while 
they remain genuine Jews, is beyond the legislator's power." 
In another paper he plainly charges the English Jews with 
using their influence towards drawing England into a war, and 
asks that, in the presence of such political danger, the exercise 
of political power be watched rather closely, He pretends 
also to know that the ruling motives of the Jewish commu- 
nity are not exclusively those which actuate a patriotic 
Englishman, but are specially Jewish and plutopolitan. 

The Jews are to him a " jealously separate race," Judaism 
is a "distinction of race," 1 and an English Jew is not an 
"Englishman holding particular theological tenets, he is a 
Jew with a special deity for his own race." 2 Consequently^ 
he argues, the English Jews cannot love their country and 
bear allegiance to it. He demands that they "cease their 
clinging to this miserable idolatry of race, which has in the 

1 Kev. Robert Hall gives us credit for being the "depositaries of 
true religion." 

2 James Anthony Froude has it, that among the ancient Hebrews 
God was the supreme Lord of the world. Did we degenerate since 
from this faith ? 



4 



present actually lost its character," and then they could be 
regarded as loyal citizens and patriots. What in his opinion 
disables them most from becoming such, is their refusal of 
intermarriage, for, says he, "It would be difficult to name 
anything more distinctive of those relations with the rest of 
the community on which patriotism depends, than the refusal of 
intermarriage. Mere soil is not the country, but the soil 
inhabited by the race, the race which is in every sense ours, 
and to which we are proud and happy to belong." He would 
not let them pass as full citizens, unless they submit to inter- 
marriage, though he is generous enough not to wish them 
deprived of their emancipation, should they even conclude to 
remain " genuine, strict " Jews. It is only this class of Jews 
to whom he would d§ny the possibility of being patriots, 
while to the rest, the liberal who are on a level with the the- 
ists, stripped of every Jewish peculiarity, he concedes the 
right to that name. 

Such extravagant reasoningis Professor Smith's ! Dr. Her- 
mann Adler, of London, ably refuted some of his arguments 
in the April number of the Nineteenth Century, leaving, how- 
ever, ample scope for others to take up the same task. I, for 
my part, shall also review the Professor's assertions, in the 
following pages. 

Let me, at the outset, ask in the name of common sense : 
Would an English Jew, if England were threatened with im- 
mediate danger, fail to stand up resolutely with his Christian 
compatriots to defend her, because he keeps the Sabbath and 
not the Sunday ? Would he refuse to offer his money or his 
strength on the altar of patriotism, because he has never been 
baptized? Does the Jewish religion forbid patriotic senti- 
ments and actions % I defy any one to prove it from the 
Bible or the Talmud. Professor Smith could, after some 
inquiry, have found just the contrary statement in a Catechism 



for the Jewish youth of England, written by Aseher, which 
I presume is yet in use there. In that book we find the fol- 
lowing. 

"Has the Jew a fatherland besides Jerusalem ? 

"Yes, the country wherein he is bred and born, and in 
which he has the liberty to practise his religion, and where 
he is allowed to carry on traffic and trade, and to enjoy all 
the advantages and protection of the law, in common with 
the citizens of other creeds, this country the Israelite is bound 
to acknowledge as his fatherland, to the benefit of which he 
must do his best to contribute. The sovereign who rules 
over this land is (after God) his sovereign ; its laws, so long 
as they are not contradictory to the Divine Law, are also the 
Israelite's laws; and the duties of his fellow-citizens are also 
his duties." 

This catechism was written by a "strict" Jew, as the 
orthodox turn of the quoted question indicates, and for the 
"genuine " Jewish youth. From it they are assuredly taught 
to love their country. Since, then, the Sabbath-school does 
not foster notions of unpatriotic separatism, where else does 
the English youth gather them? At home, perhaps, in their 
intercourse with their parents % I need not hesitate solemnly 
to declare, in the name of all Jewish parents of England, may 
they be ever so "genuine and strict," that they would reject 
the idea of teaching their children that they are not by their 
religion and conscience bound to love and abide by their 
country. 

What is one's country? Certainly not the mere soil, as 
Professor Smith himself truly says, and as everybody will 
admit. Not the soil, nor the climate or latitude, where a 
certain number of men settle together, makes this habitation 
their country, but their society organized on the basis of 
right, justice, and humanity. • The confederation of all those 



6 



inhabitants by the ties of common laws and human rights 
makes their surroundings their country, may they differ ever 
so widely from one another in their religious persuasions. 
Where the law of the commonwealth protects their interests, 
and permits them to enjoy life unmarred by illegal encroach- 
ments, they, in turn, will be its true friends, whether they be 
Christians, Jews, or Mohammedans. Nor should the national 
descent, foreign or native, or the relations of race and the 
peculiar complexion, be made a test of one's attachment to 
his country. For, as the wise Nathan rejoins to the bigot 
Templar, "we have not ourselves made choice of our race." 
And the foreigner having settled in that land permanentlv, 
and interwoven his interests with those of the native citizens, 
will just as heartily be devoted to it as they, provided he have 
equal rights and liberties, untainted by sectarian prejudices, 
or the fanaticism of race. He will be devoted to it both as a 
matter of course and of necessity ; that is, from gratitude for 
the protection enjoyed, as well as from the latent motive of 
self-interest. And, I think, the assertion can easily be sus- 
tained, that this motive is not altogether foreign to thousands 
of non-Jews glorying in their patriotism. They are necessa- 
rily concerned in the welfare and safety of their country. 
When it is imperilled, their own interests are so also, and 
therefore they watch jealously over their territory, securing 
it from the invasion of foreigners, who would injure their 
property, and use all sorts of violence against them. Com- 
mon patriotism is not so much ardent affection for the 
general good, as implicit or disguised love for one's own 
fireside. 

But, agreeing that all patriotism springs from pure senti- 
ments of gratitude and disinterested attachment to one's 
country, is the Jew incapable of such virtues ? As little as 
he is incapable of tender love to his parents. He will very 



7 



rarely be found lacking in this supreme virtue. It is infused 
into his mind from his early childhood as the most sacred 
obligation. We may then safely conclude that, if one is ten- 
derly attached to his parents for being his kindest benefac- 
tors, he will bear a similar love to his country, if it also 
prove a true benefactor to him. 

He cannot be expected, however, to love it more than his 
parents, to demand which, as Cicero did in his treatise upon 
duties, would be quite unnatural. He says : "Dear are the 
parents, the children, the relatives and Mends, yet the 
endearments of all these are comprised in the one common 
country, for which no good man will hesitate to give up his 
life, could he serve and benefit it thereby." Such a doctrine 
was fit to be preached in Rome, to a martial nation, given to 
the vainglory of subduing all the rest of the world to their 
iron rule. It is yet preached by the mercenaries of despotic 
governments, to inflame the passions of the masses for a war 
of invasion or revenge upon another nation. Judaism never 
made such an extreme demand upon the human heart as to 
hold patriotism the highest duty of all, but simply enjoins it 
as great and sacred. 

And the Jews commonly heeded this injunction. They 
loved their country under all circumstances, and were ever 
ready to sacrifice individual interests and, eventually, their 
lives, for its integrity and safety. It was not because their 
ancient country had the name of Palestine that they loved it 
so dearly, but because they cherished the inherited belief of 
God superintending it specially for the sake of their fore- 
fathers, with whom He had made a covenant; and their 
polity was founded on the venerable Law of Moses, which, 
if properly followed and executed, would secure to them a 
state of peaceful progress ; besides that, the national temple 
was their religious centre, exercising a powerful attraction 



upon them. Had another country in the West, affording 
them like advantages, been assigned to them, they would 
have been given to it with the same degree of devotion as 
they were to Palestine. 

They lost their country to the Babylonian conqueror 
Nebuchadnezzar, and were sorely grieved. What nation 
would not have been grieved at having to surrender their 
dear country and its accustomed institutions ! Does it follow 
therefrom that, if the exiles found in the new country shelter- 
ing homes and friendly protection, they had to be forever 
embittered about their loss, holding themselves forlorn stran- 
gers amidst kindly benefactors, and continue regardless of the 
well-being of others, caring only for themselves ! By no 
means. It is true that at the first time they were subjected to 
many hardships r and they could not have loved their hea- 
then masters who treated them cruelly and scoffed at their 
religion. But we know they were not of very long duration. 
The exiles must have materially been encouraged, too, by the 
exhortations of the inspired prophets who shared their exile 
with them, such as Ezekiel and the second Isaiah, the great 
unknown. Jeremiah's pathetic appeals, who communicated 
with them from Jerusalem, were also to that effect. 

These prophets pointed out to them the sure though slow 
arrival of the divine help and deliverance from their captivity . 
Thus their grief subsided in course of time, and they endur- 
ed their existing dependence as best they could. They took 
up various pursuits in which they were left unmolested, and 
became gradually used to the new order of things. 

While continuing to cherish the hope of restoration, they 
did not fail in their duties to the Babylonian government, 
which for the most part consisted in paying taxes to it. their 



1 See Isaiah xlii 22, li. 13 : Ps. cxxxiv.. cxxix.. 



9 



communal and common affairs being, from the beginning of 
the captivity, conducted by a ruler of their own, the so-called 
Exilarch ; the first one was Shealthiel, the grandson of the 
exiled prince Jehoiachin. In his family this dignity was 
inherited till the eleventh century of the Common Era. 

To be loyal to their gentile rulers they were heartily ad- 
vised by Jeremiah in a letter sent to them from Jerusalem : 
" Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and 
eat the fruit of them ; take ye wives, . . . and take wives for 
your sons. . . . And seek the peace of every city whither I 
have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto 
the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace " 
(Jerem. xxix. 5-7). They had also a noble example of true 
loyalty in Daniel, who was made ruler over the whole province 
of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. ii. 48), and served as 
minister both to Darius the Mede, and to Cyrus (ib.*vi. 29). 1 
He knew how to combine the duties of a loyal citizen and 
true patriot with a profound veneration and pious longing 
for the holy city. After praying three times a day, with his 
face turned to Jerusalem (Dan. vi. 11), or after his fervent 
supplication that " God may cause his face to shine again 
upon His sanctuary that is desolate," he could with refreshed 
spirits return to the duties of his post and discharge them 
not the less faithfully for having once more expressed that 
veneration and longing for the city and site of Israel's deso- 
late sanctuary. He was, no doubt, for all his attachment to 
the far-off holy city, as true to his charge, as any minister of 
a modern Christian state can be to his. 

The rest of the Jewish exiles were also, for aught we know, 

1 The Assyrian kings had already Israelites as public officers. King 
Salnianasar made Tobit his purveyor. Esarhaddon appointed the lat- 
ter's nephew Achiacharus over his father's accounts, and over all his 
affairs (Tobit i. 13, 21). 



10. 



dutiful citizens to the Babylonian and afterward Persian 
rulers, though they at the same time yearned for restoration. 
Cyrus would certainly not have given them permission to 
return and rebuild the city and temple (Ezra v. 14 ; Josephus, 
Ant., xi., 1), had they not deserved such royal favor by their 
loyalty to him. Nor would Artaxerxes I. have granted Ezra, 
the scribe, so large a commission and bountiful presents for 
the temple, and allowed all the Jews who desired it to accom- 
pany him to Jerusalem in 459 (Ezravii.), or shown such kind 
regard to his Jewish cup-bearer Nehemiah, had all of them 
not proved worthy of his kindness. 

u There was," says Rawlinson, "a friendly intimacy 
between the Persians and Jews that caused the latter to 
continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the 
conqueror of Issus (Joseph , Ant., xi., 8, 3), rather than 
desert masters who had showed them kindness and sym- 
pathy. 1 

After the defeat of the last Acha3menian monarch, Darius 
Codomannus, they were also faithful to Alexander the 
Great and his successors in Syria and Egypt. "They 
fought in the armies of Xerxes against the Greeks, in the 
service of the Syrians against Rome and Egypt, as well 
as in the latter country against its foes from without. 
Antiochus the Great intrusted two thousand Babylonian 
Jews with guarding his provinces Lydia and Phrygia, 
where a sedition had broken out ; for, wrote he to his 
general Zeuxis, " I am persuaded that they will be well- 
disposed guardians of our possessions, because of their 
piety towards God, and because . . . they are faithful, 
and with alacrity do what they are desired to do." 2 Another 



1 The Five Great Monarchies, Vol. IV., p. 340. 

2 Jos. Ant., xii., 3, 3. 



11 



Syrian king, Demetrius, granted to the Maceabee Jon- 
athan that there be enrolled among: the kind's forces about 
thirty thousand Jews, unto whom pay shall be given . . . and 
of them some shall be placed in the king's strongholds, 
of whom also some shall be set over the affairs of the 
kingdom which are of trust." 1 

When the Parthians ruled over Babylonia, the Jews were 
likewise faithful to them. They even joined their armies in 
their expeditions to the West, especially against Jerusalem. 2 
The Arsacidan governors were generally tolerant in religious 
matters, 3 which must have also benefited the Jews. Their 
sympathy for them was in proportion to the kind treatment 
they received at their hands. It is best illustrated by the 
saying of a rabbi of old, who compared their hosts with those 
of king David. 4 But for all their attachment to the Par- 
thian rulers and their country, the Babylonian Jews did not 
relax their pious veneration for Jerusalem and its temple. 
They made their pilgrimage there in the holy seasons (Jos., 
Ant., xvii., 2), paid their yearly contribution of half a shekel 
towards the national sanctuary (ib., xviii., 9), and made them- 
selves, besides, dependent on the instructions and decisions 
of the great council, the Synhedrin, residing at Jerusalem, 
especially in calendarial matters. All this dependence on the 
mother country had, however, only a religious bearing. In 
political respects, they felt themselves children of Babylonia, 
and were devoted to it and its rulers from their heart. 
Gradually even this religious dependence on Jerusalem 
decreased. When the temple was no more and the culti- 
vation of religious science had, through prominent rabbis of 

1 1 Mace. x. 36. See Jost, History of Judaism, I., p. 295. 
- Jost, ib., p. 338. 

3 Vaux, History of Persia, p. 154. 

4 Kidushin, p. 72. 



12 



their own academies, as those of Sura and Xehardea, ad- 
vanced so far that they needed no longer support from the 
mother country, the Babylonian Jews tried to liberate them- 
selves from this dependence. 1 This was in the latter part of 
the second century Com. Era. From this time Babylonia was 
respected as another holy land. 

To one great Babylonian. Mar Samuel who was at that 
time president of the academy of Nehardea. belongs the 
memorable maxim: "The law of the country has to rule 
us." were it even in conflict with some of our religions cus- 
toms. This maxim met with no opposition from other 
rabbis, but was readily adopted and observed by all the Jews 
thereafter. A modern Jewish historian, Gratz. says of it. 
that eminent Babylonian rabbi translated Jeremiah's admo- 
nition of old into a religious precept, and that to both these 
leading men Judaism owed the possibility of its existence in 
foreign lands.' 

Samuel's disciple, Bab Judah. pronounced it even a sin to 
emigrate from Babylonia to Palestine, and this saying was 
quite congenial to the sentiments of all the Jewish people 
there, who had a profound love of their country at heart. 

Samuel's patriotic labors tended materially to soften the 
sectarian prejudices nourished against the Jews through the 
fanatic Magi, who arose to great influence when Ardeshir, the 
first Sassanian king, assumed the reins of the Parthian gov- 
ernment, in 226, Common Era. Samuel was a rrue friend to 
his son and successor. Sapores, and supported him with all his 
might and influence : he, on his part, was very friendly to his 
Jewish subjects, much like Cyrus of old. s 

After following up the history of the exiles and their 

1 See Mar Samuel's Life by Hoffman, p. '65. 
- History of the Jews, IV., p. 288. 
3 Hoffman, p. 46. 



IS 



descendants in Babylonia through more than eight cen- 
turies, and proving from it, as we did, their patriotism to 
the various gentile governments, let us also review briefly 
the bearing of the Egyptian Jews in those remote periods. 

Those of Alexandria in Egypt were also faithful citizens, 
and equal rights with the Macedonians were given them by 
Alexander the Great, "because he had, upon a careful trial, 
found them all to have been men of virtue and fidelity to 
him" (Josephus against Apion, ii., 4). Ptolemy, son of 
Lagos, " intrusted the fortresses of Egypt into their hands, 
as believing they would keep them faithfully and valiantly 
for him " (ib.). Ptolemy Philometor and his wife Cleopatra 
^committed their whole kingdom to Jews, when Onias and 
Dositheus, both Jews, were the generals of their army " (ib.). 
These Jews, loyal to the crown, brought also the insurgent 
Alexandrians 4, to terms of agreement, and freed them from 
the miseries of a civil war.'' And it was Onias who " under- 
took a war against the usurper Ptolemy Physco, on 
Cleopatra's account ; nor would he desert that trust the royal 
family had reposed in him, in their distress." His army was 
mainly composed of Jews, as is evident from Josephus' 
report. And these Jews were as loyal and patriotic to the 
Egyptian line as the English race ever could be to Her 
Majesty in any critical condition of her empire. 

Speak of patriotism as the exclusive property of the 
" English race," when the Egyptian Jews, though followers 
of Jehovah, had already in such a remote period, from 
Alexander to Augustus, proved a sincere and valorous 
devotion to gentile governments ! They were as little urged 
to it by a "Jewish and plutopolitan motive," as any descen- 
dant of the Saxons, who worshipped the great Woden, the 
German god of war, can ever be suspected of a similar motive, 
when called by his country to defend and protect her interests. 



Let us also examine Jewish patriotism in the time of the 
Maccabees. For although their only aim was to save the 
Jewish state and religious institutions from the reckless 
violence of the Syrians, it must be conceded that people who 
are so warmly attached to their country as to fly to arms and 
fight bravely for maintaining and restoring civil and religious 
liberty to themselves and their countrymen, are patriots 
indeed, whether they hail from the East or the West, and 
be their religious creed whatever it may. Such stanch and 
heroic men, urged by the dictates of their brave spirit to 
help rescuing their country from present or impending perils, 
would do the same and manifest the same patriotic zeal for 
the threatened interests of England or America as for Judea. 
Politically, Judea was to the Maccabees no more and no 
dearer than England or America is to any of her present 
Jewish citizens, enjoying as they do equally with those of the 
Christian faith all civil rights and the beneficial protection 
of the law. History exhibits no more illustrious patterns of 
patriotism than the Maccabees. When Antiochus Epiphanes 
issued and enforced his edict that all the Jews of his empire 
should forsake their religion, enacting the first religious 
persecution against our race, the venerable Mattathias, 
a resident priest of Modin, arose and lamented bitterly: 
" Woe me! wherefore was I born to see this misery of my 
people and of the holy city !" (1 Mac. ii. 7). Nor did he stop 
short at mere remonstrance ; he left his comfortable home, and, 
summoning all the courage of his old age, worked zealously 
with his sons and followers, few as they were, to rescue the 
sacred Law from the revilements of the heathen (ib. ii. 48). 
The maintenance of this Law was to the Maccabees 
identical with that of their political independence. Church 
and state were to the Israelitish commonwealth of old one 
and the same. The Mosaic Code was their law, governing 



15 



both their civil and religious affairs. To secure that law 
from outward infringements and profanation was the noble 
task of the Maccabees. 

To that end Judas Maccabee fought the powerful armies 
of the Syrians, who were bent on destroying the land and the 
people. He and his brothers led the brave warriors with the 
fixed purpose of relieving their downtrodden brethren, and 
recovering both their independence and the security of the 
national sanctuary (ib. iii. 43). Judas' brother Eleazar, "put 
himself in jeopardy to the end he might deliver his people," 
(ib. vi. 44). When Judas' position against Bacchides be- 
came so desperate that his men warned him against ven- 
turing upon an engagement with the superior forces of the 
enemy, asking him to retreat for a while until they could be 
reinforced by others troops, he would not heed their advice, 
rejoining resolutely : " God forbid that I should do this 
thing and flee away from them : if our time be come, let us 
die manfully for our brethren and let us not stain our honor " 
(ib. ix. 10)." 

He died, indeed, in the ensuing battle, for his brethren 
whom he strove so patriotically to relieve and save. Such 
patriotism has never been surpassed. His own patriotic zeal 
kindled that of his brave followers, so that they were ready 
to die "for the laws and the country " (ib. ii. 8, 21, see also ib. 
11, 7 and 13, 10). They prepared themselves for the bloody 
task by fasting, praying, and other religious exercises, leaving 
their camp for the battle-field with the memorable watch- 
word : " The help of God " or " Victory is of God " (ib. ii. 8, 
23; 13, 15). 

Can the members of the English race consecrate their 
patriotism in a more appropriate way? Would that all, 
Christians and Jews, follow the noble example of the 



16 



Maccabean heroes, whenever they are called upon to defend 
a good cause ! 

Who must not wonder at the remarkable valor displayed 
by the Jews in their tremendous struggle of independence 
against the Romans which was carried on for five years, from 
65 to 70, Common Era. This struggle resembles the Ameri- 
can Revolution in many respects. The Jews had the same 
grievances against the Roman dominion as the American colo- 
nies against the English; theirs were even more and stronger. 
The Romans levied exorbitant taxes upon the inhabitants of 
the Jewish provinces; of course, without their consent, as 
the colonists complained in our Declaration. Since Augustus 
subdued Judea and incorporated it as a province into the 
Roman empire, their duties and the way of exacting them 
became more and more intolerable. This provoked their 
keen discontent and a strong desire for redress. They had 
formerly, without opposition, borne the most burdensome 
taxation. Until the time of Antiochus the Great they were 
paying to their foreign rulers the poll-money, the crown-tax, 
and other taxes (Jos., Ant., xii., 3, 3). The tribute imposed by 
him and his successors was also oppressive enough (1 Mace, 
xii. 29-31, 42 ; xi. 34-35). The Jews calmly submitted to it. 

The new Roman system, however, with all its heinous 
annoyances, stung their national pride to the quick and 
offended their feelings greatly. It was heinous to them, not 
from any superstition, because their names were to be entered 
in the tax-roll which would be sinful, like David's numbering 
the people (2 Sam. xxiv.), as Renan states in his Life of 
Jesus. We are not informed by the historians that their 
religious sentiments rebelled against the enrollment itself. 
It was only the taxation by Quirinius "of their substance/j 



1 Jos., Ant., xviii., 1, 1. 



17 



their income, that aroused their disaffection, as it would open 
the way for dishonest practices and cruel exactions by the 
tax farmers. Their hard-earned produce was now valued by 
irresponsible publicans. Subjecting it to a fluctuating price, 
they could the easier defraud the Jewish husbandmen. 

This class of Roman officers was generally corrupt, exhib- 
iting such an infamous greediness that they were shunned 
and hated by all. Jesus was aware of it when he told those 
coming to him to be baptized: " Exact no more than that 
which is appointed you (Luke iii. 13). The popular voice 
branded them as sinners (ib, xix. 7), an appellation too mild 
indeed, for such pitiless wretches. For they not only taxed 
the substance of the people at their arbitrary estimate, they 
frequently brought to account those who were unable to pay. 
This we learn from an old Jewish source Pesikta. Shekaiim. 
p. 11): "The Romans first ask the poll-tax. then the demos 
(the state tax), and the eranos (another tribute), and, if one 
cannot pay. he has to swear to it, and to suffer corporal 
penalties." 

Such abuses, entailed by the new system of taxation, must 
have provoked even the most peaceable citizens. It is very 
likely, therefore, that the movement of Judas, of Galilee, the 
founder of the party of the zealots, against it in the "days of 
taxing," sprang from these abuses, real and apprehended, 
rather than from his opposition to paying tribute at all, were 
it justly imposed and collected. Josephus does not say- 
that he dissuaded the people from paying it at the first 
introduction of the census, so we are free to presume he did 
>o only after this vicious system had been in operation for 
some time. 

But admitting that he and his zealous partisans were 



1 Jos., Wars, ii., 8, 1. 



18 



fiercely opposed to Roman taxation at all, were they to 
blame for it ? It was altogether too burdensome. The 
Jews were already in the reign of Tiberius so much borne 
down by the tribute that they had to appeal to him for its 
diminution (Tacitus Annal., ii., 42). Even Jesus was oppos- 
ed to it as an unheard-of irregularity (Matthew, xvii. 24), 
disapproving only its open refusal (ib. xxii. 15). In like 
manner did the rabbis warn from eluding the tribute 
(Talmud, Succah, p; 30), though they felt the Roman oppres- 
sion as deeply as their common brethren. 

And were these not patient long enough? For nearly 
sixty years, from the beginning of the census, they endured 
the most inhuman exactions without resorting to an open 
revolt, until it was inevitable. 

It was mainly brought on through the Roman procurators, 
who were, with few exceptions, unprincipled, greedy, and 
cruel men, offering the greatest insults to the Jews and their 
religious sentiments. 

Pilate brought by stealth the images of Tiberius into the 
holy city, an affront the Jews could not bear, from their reli- 
gious horror of all image worship. Petronius was to place 
Caligula's statues in the temple at the emperor's request. 
The contemptuous behavior of a Roman soldier under 
Curnanus, and this man's insolent disregard of the Jewish 
rights, increased the dissatisfaction. The emperor Claudius 
was urged to banish him for it. The same Claudius, who, as 
i'acitus reports, "gave over the province of Judea to Roman 
knights and freedmen, one of whom, Felix, wielded the 
despotic power with a knavish spirit, committing all kinds 
of cruelty and tyranny." 1 "And yet," adds this historian, 
"did the Jews keep patience until Florus became procura- 
tor ; under him the war broke out." 



1 Histor., v., 9. 



19 



This corrupt and rapacious hireling stole seventeen talents 
out of the temple treasury, and " publicly proclaimed it all 
the country over, that all had liberty given them to turn rob- 
bers, upon this condition, that he might go shares with them 
in the spoils." 1 * 

Such outrages perpetrated by the Roman authorities and 
soldiery were beyond bearing. They had to look on them 
as fixed enemies. No wonder, then, that the patriots rose 
up zealously in defence of their honor and liberty. Had 
they been unanimous, not divided into factions, each pursu- 
ing the aim of independence in its own way, the Roman 
power might have been crushed at the outbreak of the revo- 
lution. But despite their party conflicts, they were one in 
their exasperation at the Roman outrages, and all of them 
were kindled with a sincere, patriotic zeal. They aimed at 
no worldly gain: all they strove to acquire was personal and 
religious freedom. For this they were ready to die. Their 
glory is by no means diminished by the co-existence of a 
class of low Jews, who were gratifying their grudge against 
suspected opponents of the common cause by frequent assas- 
sinations, or who sought to profit by the disorder and 
anarchy of those excited times. It is true there were then 
Sicarii, robbers, among the Jews. But to speak of the war- 
riors of the revolution as robbers, as the Jewish historian 
Josephus did, is a flagrant calumny. He calls John of 
Gischala a tyrant, his men robbers, and all the revolution- 
ists " the seditious." But they deserved these opprobrious 
names as little as the heroes of the American revolution 
deserved to be called rebels by the British. 

History chronicles no more signal defence of a beloved 
place than that by the Jewish patriots of their temple in the 
last phase of their fearful struggle, when all the factions of 



1 Josephus, Wars, xiy., 2. 



20 



the zealots forgot their mutual hostilities in their common 
interest to save that national sanctuary. Even the peaceful 
and retired sect of the Essenes took up arms against the 
common foe, like a large number of Quakers in the American 
war who joined the Philadelphia companies to fight for 
independence, though their religious scruples forbade them 
the use of arms. 

The Roman legions, led by Titus, when about to raise 
banks against the tower of Antonia, were greatly discouraged, 
because "they found the Jews' courageous souls to be 
superior to the multitude of the miseries they were under." 
Even Josephus, while he could but belittle the merits of the 
revolutionists, declared, at the same time, their courage to 
be " peculiar to our nation " (Wars, vi., 1, 3). 

This very courage it was that kept the Jewish patriots 
fighting to the last, Although Josephus states elsewhere 
that their great encouragements were " their fear for them- 
selves and for their temple and the presence of the tyrant," 
John of Gischala, whom he reports to have boasted "that 
he did never fear the taking of Jerusalem, because it was 
God's own city," we know that it was only his personal 
grudge against this leader that bade him deny the bravery 
of the Jewish warriors at that time. Their high cour- 
age and great patriotism, however, availed them nothing. 
The fortress of Antonia fell, and then the temple. But 
it took the Romans fully six weeks .before the tem- 
ple was destroyed. The Roman colossus had to strug- 
gle hard with the <4 constancy and patience of the Jews 
even under their ill-successes," a confession made by Titus 
himself in his address to the army (Wars, vi., 1, 5). 

In this theatre of war there were famous actors, such as 
Eleazar, John, and Simon, and hundreds of other patriots 
who fought gallantly, in the severe straits of famine, for 



21 



their independence and freedom. "There were more Jews 
who furnished themselves with arms for the defence of the 
national cause than could actually participate," reports 
Tacitus, adding, moreover, that, "in firmness the Jewish 
women were equal to the men; and when the Jews were 
forced to surrender their positions, they manifested a greater 
fear of life than death." 1 If such an historian as Tacitus, 
who was all but a friend of the Jews, bears testimony to 
their great valor and patriotic zeal, we can easily pass over 
their denunciation as robbers by Josephus, who was, never- 
theless, bold enough to say that, " while he is alive, he 
would never be in such a slavery as to forego his own 
kindred." 

Jerusalem fell a second time. The temple was laid in 
ashes. The Jewish state ceased. The insolent victors took 
the most cruel advantage over the captive matron, Judea. 
The survivors of the bloody struggle were at the mercy of 
the Romans. And now 7 they began to scatter broadcast 
over all parts of the inhabited globe. Yespasian converted 
the traditional yearly temple tax of the didrachma into a 
tribute to the Capitol of Rome, initiating the famous Jew 
tax that lasted, in its various modifications, more than seven- 
teen hundred years, as an emblem either of the longevity of 
the Jews or of undying prejudice. This tribute was levied 
alike on the eastern and western Jews. It seems, however, 
to have been abolished after Vespasian's death, because Ave 
are told that the Jew T ish patriarchs of Palestine used to col- 
lect it for themselves until Emperor Theodosius II. peremp- 
torily decided it must be paid into the imperial treasury, in 
the year 429. 

This tribute w r as afterwards claimed by the German em- 
perors, who assumed also the title and privileges of Roman 



1 lb. v. 13. 



22 



kings. The Schwabenspiegel, one of the oldest German 
codes of law, edited before the year 1276. speaks of the Jews 
as the property of the German- Roman empire inherited from 
Titus, and that they, therefore, stood under its immediate 
protection. In reward for such protectorate, the German 
emperors, from the tenth century on. asked of the Jews that 
ancient tribute under the name of crown money ( aurumcoro- 
narium). Had it proved efficient, securing their life and 
property, it would have well been worth its amount — one 
Rhenish gilder for every Jewish head of twelve years on every 
Christmas. But neither could the best of the emperors pro- 
tect them thoroughly, nor did they confine their claims upon 
the Jews to that yearly tribute alone. They had, besides, to 
pay to each one after his election the so-called third penny 
or the crown tax, as a ransom for their lives that could be 
taken by him, according to a later interpretation, any time at 
his pleasure : only that he would have to leave alive a few 
for a constant memorial. Thereto was added the common tax 
on their real estate, half of which belonged to the emperor, 
and the other half to the provincial or municipal authorities. 
Then came the tenth penny, a kind of income tax for their 
privilege of free traffic. Then certain obligatory presents to 
some state officials. They had also to furnish the parchment 
for the chancery of the empire, and at Frankfort, to lend all 
the bedding required for the imperial court, whenever it held 
its session there. In the train of these impositions was the 
tithe collected by the churches, and other arbitrary requisitions 
by princes and ecclesiastical rulers. 

Such were their duties during the middle ages, and in part 
to the end of the last century Were they to love a country 
crushing them with intolerable burdens ! And did these 
secure them life and property ? They did not. 

A regular system of massacre and pillage was inaugurated 



23 



against them from the beginning of the crusades, those " wild 
and romantic adventures." The best meaning emperors and 
citizens were generally unable to prevent and sometimes even 
to suppress these persecutions. The 44 holy warriors " gave 
the Jews the alternative of conversion or death, or simply 
plundered them under the pretext of their being outlawed 
enemies of Christ. Count Emicho had in the first crusade 
alone appropriated 12.000 ducats of the Jews' money. The 
Archbishop of Mayence himself was believed to have shared 
iu the spoils of the then plundered Jews of that city. Some of 
his near relatives were on solid testimony held to account 
for participating in that robbery by Henry IV., who, on 
his return to the empire in 1098, was earnestly intent on all 
possible restitution being made to the Jews who had lost so 
much in the bloody raids, or were the heirs of the victims 
two years before. Even the property of the Jews yielding 
to conversion, forced on them in these benighted times, was 
not always safe. Some kings and princes losing through 
their conversion the regular Jewish revenue, sought to in- 
demnify themselves by confiscating their property, though 
they were now nominal Christians. 1 This was a short and 
easy financial process, as was that of the noble kings John 
and Henry III., of England, the former imprisoning his Jews 
to force them to surrender their money, from one of whom 
were taken seven teeth, one on each subsequent day, till on 
the eighth he ransomed the remainder of his teeth at the price 
demanded, 10,000 marcs of silver ; the latter extorting 10,000 
marcs from the Jews by making ten of their richest men 
bound for their payment. 2 Well may the 44 English race"" 
be ''proud " of such magnanimous princes, and 44 happy " to 
count them among the leaders of English Christian civilization ! 

1 Montesquieu, L'esprit des lois, II., 21, 16, who states that this out- 
rageous practice had been abolished by law in 1392. 
- Tovey, Anglia Judaica. 



24 



The Christian Councils held under the auspices of the 
Frank and Visigoth rnonarchs sowed the seed of intolerance 
against the Jews which soon grew into a rank crop. Greedy 
potentates, fanatic and rapacious masses, and demoralized 
priests were eagerly gathering it. They drove the Jews out 
of the pale of society, nay treated them as outcasts of human- 
ity deserving no human sympathy. The Christian law of the 
Middle Ages forbade the Jews to hold Christian servants. 
When they had to take an oath in court, they were compelled 
to stand on a hog-skin, repeating after the magistrate the 
most abominable execrations as a threat for perjury. To be 
outwardly known from Christians, as their complexion was 
often deceiving, they had to wear badges on their clothes, as 
if their common " badge of sufferance" alone had not sufficed 
to distinguish them from others. 

The Council at Narbonne, in 1227, decreed it should be of 
cloth in the form of a wheel, and the synod of Augsburg, 
in 1452, was seriously engaged in ordering separate badges 
for both sexes, a round rag of saffron color about the breas 
for the male, and two grayish ruffles for the female Jews. 
Those of England had to wear a yellow badge, by virtue of 
an act of Parliament, under Edward I. They were not long 
adorned with it, however, that generous king expelling them 
from his domain in the year 1290. 

Another mark of distinction was the Jew hat. The synod 
of Vienna, in 1267, and of Salzburg, in 1418, made it a penal 
law for the Jews to wear cornered hats, that they might be 
known distinctly from Christians. Siisskind von Trimberg. 
the homeless Jewish minstrel of the 13th century, alludes in 
his poems, as Delitzsch 1 supposes, to this monstrous out- 
growth of Christian intolerance. 

The German emperors and the kings and princes of 
Christian Europe assuming the ownership of their dependent 



1 See Orient of 1810. p. 115 seq. 



25 



Jews, they were from time to time presented by them as 
gifts, or mortgaged like inanimate property to other rulers or 
imperial cities. Every public calamity was laid to their 
charge, even the pestilence of 1348-50 that ravaged fearfully 
throughout Europe. They were falsely accused of having 
poisoned the wells, and thereby caused that fell plague. 
Innumerable innocent Jews were then murdered or publicly 
burned at the stake ; their princely protectors could not 
overawe the excited populace. In the Age of Reformation, 
when a broader intelligence began to spread among the 
masses, releasing their benumbed minds from the bane of 
religious ignorance, the wholesale massacres and pillages of 
the Jews ceased, to give way only to their wholesale expul- 
sions from their oldest settlements. 

Could they have loved a country where their race was 
doomed to continued oppression, misery, and disgrace, and 
kept in constant jeopardy of life and property ? Had they 
really a country in the dark Middle Ages ? No, they had 
" but the grave." 

And yet even in these barbarous ages the Jews were not 
wanting in patriotism to those communities w hose government 
and gentile citizens had sense of humanity enough to treat 
them as human beings, if not as equal brethren. Xot to 
speak of the many high and honorable positions given to 
prominent Jews of Mohammedan Spam, I will quote several 
instances of the kind occurring in Christian countries proper. 

It can be proved beyond doubt that, despite the Christian 
law forbidding the Jews to hold administrative or judicial 
offices, or to serve in the armies of Christian states even in 
urgent cases of defense, 1 some princes and communities be- 

1 Edict of Theodoshis II. from the year 439. Only the burdensome 
and expensive office of decurions was allowed to or rather imposed on 
them by Constantine, according to his order for Cologne in 321, and 
afterward by Justinian. 



26 



stowed various posts of honor and trust on such of their Jews 
as they found trustworthy and able. In one of the 
gloomiest periods of Jewish history, in the year 1259, the 
provincial Council of Mayence issued an ordinance forbidding 
the Jews to continue in any secular dignity or public office. 1 
This shows that they were until then actually occupying 
such positions. 

Duke Leopold of Austria, in the twelfth century, had a 
Jew, Solomon, appointed as superintendent of his mint, an 
office of trust he held also under his son and successor, Fred- 
erick.' 2 Two Jewish brothers, Lublin and Xekelo, were 
functionaries of an Austrian Duke, about the year 1257. 3 It 
may not be amiss to mention here also, that the Jewish 
physicians of the middle ages, were, notwithstanding the con- 
trary ecclesiastical injunctions, 4 of great service to many 
municipalities, popes, and princes. Even the bigoted 
Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, the grandson of the Emperor 
Lewis, in his sickness, sent abroad for a Jewish doctor^ 
Jacob, who attended him in his palace till he was cured. 
This was in the year 1392. 

And though the old German-Christian law interdicted the 
Jews to bear arms, 5 they knew nevertheless how to wield 
and use them in their own defense, 6 as well as of those 
governments and cities which afforded them protection. 

1 Mansi, Conciliorum nova collectio. vol. xxiii. , p. 997. 

2 Monumsnta boica, IY., No. 115. 

3 Meichelbeck, Historia Erisingensis, II., p. -47. 

4 The council of Vienna. 1267, ordered that no Jewish physician 
should practise in Christian families. 

5 Sachsenspiegel, libr. iii.. art. 2. 

6 During their persecution by Bindfleisch, in 1298, the forts of 
Nuremberg and Neumarkt were offered them as places of refuge. 
Therein they defended themselves by force of arms, many Christians 
of those cities joining and assisting them. Pertz, Monumenta Ger- 



27 



When once, in the thirteenth century, the city of Worms 
was besieged, Rabbi Eleazar, the leading divine of the Jews 
there, requested them to fly to arms, and this on a Sabbath 
day, as he considered it their urgent duty to defend the 
threatened place. 1 King Philip the Handsome, of France, 
is said to have had thirty thousand Jews in his army, in his 
expedition against Count Guy of Flanders, 1297, who had 
renounced his allegiance to him Whether he levied them 
against their will is not reported, though it is very likely, 
from his tyranny to his Jews soon after, that he aimed to 
expose them to the fatal chances of the first engagements, 
as the chronicler has it. 2 

The Jews had also in previous centuries proved their sin- 
cere patriotism and bravery in defense of Christian cities. 
The Jews of Aries in France, after it was conquered by the 
Visigoth king Euric, in 477, enjoyed perfect liberty and 
equality, and were in return so much attached to the city 
that they offered readily their lives in its defense. When 
it was besieged by the Franks and Burgundians, in 508, 
they held firmly to the rightful king, resisting by force of 
arms the assaults of the invaders. They disclosed also the 
traitorous conspiracy of the bishop Caesarius against the 
city, for which he was sentenced to prison. 3 

Likewise did the Jews of "Naples exhibit a brave spirit 
when it was threatened with immediate danger by the 
besieging forces of the Byzantine conqueror. Belisarius. 



maniae, vol. xvii., p. 419. — The Christian community of Augsburg 
guarded their Jews from the assaults of this villain. Out of gratitude 
for it, they built at their own expense, alongside their cemetery, a 
wall for the protection of the city. 

1 Rokeach, § 196, a treatise by the same rabbi on Jewish rites and 
customs. - Pertz, Monumenta Germanias, xvii., p, 417. 

3 Dr. H. Gross in Gratz' Monatschrift, March, 1878. 



28 



He was sent, at the command of the Emperor Justinian, 
to take the city by force, in 536. The Jewish inhabitants, 
who were enjoying greater toleration than their brethren 
living in the Byzantine empire, held themselves bound to 
their king, the Ostrogoth Theodoric, and would not 
forsake him in the hour of peril. They called upon their 
gentile fellow-citizens to stand up resolutely in the de- 
fense of their common liberties, offering even to furnish 
the entire population gratuitously with the necessaries of 
life during the siege. Their own companies held the sea- 
side all alone, fully prepared to meet the foe, who, however, . 
did not dare to attack this so well-defended part of the city. 
They met bravely all the dangers surrounding them at last, 
when one night the foe suddenly broke into the city, and 
captured it after a desperate battle. The Jews fought as 
heroes. 1 

Their number and names have not been recorded by jeal- 
ous history. But the fact of their sincere patriotism suffices 
to convince any unprejudiced mind that the Jews can be 
and are true friends to their country, if the country is a 
true friend to them. 

But from the time of Charlemagne to the great Napoleon, 
Christian countries manifested an unaccountable hatred to 
the Jews, debarring them from common society by the most 
offensive treatment, and trampling on all their human rights. 
Say what you will, the Jews were never wanting in patrio- 
tism, but the Christians were in charity. The Reformation 
clearing away abuses of the Church, by no means carried 
away prejudices against our race. The intolerance of its 
leaders was as great as of the overbearing dignitaries of the 
ruling church, Nor was the Christian populace more inclin- 
ed to tolerate the Jews, since they had imbibed the new doc- 

1 Gr'atz, History of the Jews, v., 50-57. 



29 



trines. It was asserted that in the Peasants' War, 1525, the 
Jews suffered no ill-treatment, because they supported the 
cause of the imperial cities and the revolted peasants of Ger- 
many against the princes and nobility. But this assertion has 
been refuted by an able Jewish writer, w r ho proved that the 
insurgent peasants were not at all disposed to spare the 
Jews and their property. Pillages and expulsion of Jews 
were the order of the day in that revolution, which they may 
have kept off here and there by rich presents. 1 

They were hated then as they were afterwards, the light 
of the Reformation notwithstanding. It was left to the grow- 
ing enlightenment of the last century gradually to soften and 
dispel the fierce prejudices against our race. Its apostles con- 
tributed greatly to the amelioration of their condition. The 
great Lessing did mighty service to the German Jews. His 
friend Mendelssohn, the German Socrates as he was called, 
co-operated with him in destroying the popular hatred and 
ill-will against them. The latter had himself sorely suffered 
from it. It hurt him painfully that "in so many a beloved city 
of the fatherland no Jew, even after paying the prescribed tax 
on his body, was in broad daylight allowed to stay without 
being closely watched, for fear he might pursue a Christian 
child, or poison the wells; when at night they would not tol- 
erate him at all, for his reputed communication with evil 
spirits." He worked hard to break down the wall of social 
separation and discrimination between Christians and Jews- 
It was hard work, as he himself despondently remarked. "You 
may cut the roots of prejudices in twain, and yet they will 
thrive, drawing their nourishment from the air. if not from the 
ground." But contemporaneously with the praiseworthy ef- 
forts of those and other champions of humanity in Christian 



1 Alfred Stern, in G-eiger's Zeitschrift, 1870, first number, p. 57 
seq. 



30 



Europe, a political storm arose on the American continent, 
uprooting systematically all that was left of the medieval 
prejudices of race and rank. The solemn Declaration by the 
American Congress of 1776 of "the self-evident truth, that 
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness " was the new gos- 
pel removing in principle all civil disadvantages and disabil- 
ities imposed on any class of human beings on account of 
their descent or religion. Every letter of it was inspired and 
could safely be adopted by sensible and upright people of all 
creeds. Jew and Christian alike could swear to its infallible 
truths. And while the fathers of our Republic made this 
Declaration good by vindicating and securing unshackled lib- 
erty to the thirteen colonies, they at the snme time vindicated 
implicitly the human rights of the Jews, withheld from them 
for nearly fifteen hundred years. 

The French Revolution followed, destroying the old society 
and its ancient abuses. Till then, " society had yet the 
forms of the middle age. The common people had no rights 
at all." The privileged orders, the nobility and clergy, al- 
lowed them no ascendency. The revolution replaced these 
privileges by the equality of all citizens. This was guaran- 
teed to all French citizens alike, the Jews, of course, includ- 
ed. The year 1793 brought them this long-desired boon. 

However, one must not think that their liberties passed at 
once from the statute into reality. As there were yet many 
bloody battles to be fought, from the Declaration of American 
Independence to its practical existence, so had the French 
Jews to struggle many years till the principle of full equality 
was actually applied in their relations to the state. 

Even Napoleon the Great, pretending, as he did, to put an 
end to the rotten state of the past, would not regard the Jews 



31 



as citizens, even so late as in the year 1806. He then declar- 
ed: " The Jews are not in the same category with the 
Christians. We have to judge them by the political, not the 
civil right, for they are no citizens. " He bad, however, the 
earnest desire to make citizens of them. To that end he 
convened a respectable number of Jewish deputies, in 1806. 
charging them to state and explain truly the obstacles, if 
there were any, to Jewish citizenship, emanating from their 
religion. One of the questions put to that body was : 

Do the Jews born in France, and considered by the law as 
her citizens, regard this country as theirs, even so far as to 
be obliged eventually to defend her? 

They solemnly answered: k4 People who chose for them- 
selves a fatherland, living therein since many centuries, and 
who, even under oppressive laws, felt such an attachment to 
it that they did rather forego the enjoyment of civil liberties 
than quit it : such cannot but think themselves French- 
men in France, and the obligation to defend her is to them 
an honorable and precious one. — Jeremiah advised the Jews 
of Babylonia to regard this land as their country, though they 
were to have stayed there only seventy years. They followed 
this advice to such a degree that, when Cyrus permitted the 
exiles to return to their mother country, only 42,360 of them 
would avail themselves of that permission. 

"Love of country is such a natural and profound sentiment 
among the Jews, and so corresponding to their religious belief, 
that a French Jew would think himself a stranger on English 
territory, even in his intercourse with co-religionists, the 
same being true of English Jews in France. 

" This sentiment prevails among them in such a measure that 
in the late wars one could see frequently French Jews 1 fight 

1 Of 77,000 Jews in all the French provinces, there were, about that 
time, 797 in active military service (Gr'atz's History, Vol. xi., p. 304). 



32 



with fierce animosity against those of the hostile ranks. 
Many of them are now beset with scars, as the glorious 
marks of their patriotic devotion, and others have been 
praised and distinguished for their bravery on the field of 
honor." 

This declaration of the Jewish deputies was, the next year, 
sanctioned by the Synhedrin, the Jewish council, convened 
at Paris. Napoleon acted henceforth according to this trust- 
worthy information, treating the Jews, in all the countries 
that were under his rule, as fall citizens. Those of the new 
kingdom of Westphalia and of Frankfort were released from 
the miserable bondage they had so many centuries endured. 
The gates of their gloomy quarters were, w T ith the entrance 
of the French officials, suddenly opened, and out they could 
go and stride, along with the hitherto privileged race, on 
the highway of freedom, secured by the mighty conqueror. 
Adjoining states could not well stand back any longer, and 
commenced also liberating the Jews. King Frederick Wil- 
liam III. had given the Jews of Prussia the local citizenship 
in 1809, followed, in 1812, by their perfect emancipation, on 
the condition of performing all civil duties, especially military 
service. 

No sooner were they promised this equality with their 
Christian fellow -citizens, than they hastened to prove them- 
selves worthy of the royal kindness and confidence. In the 
ensuing wars of independence, they responded readily to the 
summons of their king, rallying round the Prussian standard 
with an exemplary patriotism. According to the Prussian 
Military Gazette of 1843, there served in the campaigns of 
1813-14, out of the then small Jewish population, 263 volun- 
teers and 80 regulars. The same paper states that in 1815, 
when the Prussian army had its largest strength, the num- 
ber of Jewish soldiers in it may have been, according to the 



33 



former ratio, 731. This computation was, however, con- 
tested by well informed Jewish writers as being too low, 
considering the fact that in 1815 there were 30 Jews in one 
battalion of volunteer riflemen alone. In one such detach- 
ment of but 200 men there were 7 Jews, 2 of them — the 
brothers Simon — were among the first fifteen who joined the 
ranks as volunteers. Hardenberg, the Prussian chancellor 
in a letter to the Count von Grote, dated January 4th, 1815, 
gave the Jews the following testimony: "The history of our 
late war with France shows already that the Jews have, by 
their faithful allegiance to the state conferring equal rights 
on them, proved worthy of it. The young men of the Jewish 
faith were the military comrades of their Christian fellow- 
citizens, of whom we can present instances of true heroism and 
glorious braving of the dangers of war. The rest of- the 
Jewish inhabitants, especially the ladies, vied with the Chris- 
tians in all kinds of patriotic sacrifices." To this we could 
add several more faithful testimonies of the gallantry of 
Jewish soldiers in the Prussian army. 1 Where did this 
patriotism spring from ? From a "Jewish and plutopolitan 
motive," or from growing love to a country that seemed 
gradually to arrive at the sense of justice towards their op- 
pressed race % Even Professor Smith will beware of imputing 
an impure motive to these Prussian Jews. Xor will he be 
able to uphold his pretext any longer, that the Jews serve 
as soldiers only where military service is compulsory, as in 
modern Prussia. Their service in the Prussian and other 
German armies, during the wars of independence, was, for 
the most part, voluntary. 

So was also that of the Jewish soldiers in our late civil war. 
Co. H, of the Sixty-sixth Volunteer Regiment, that took part 
in many battles, had mainly co-religionists in its ranks. 



1 See Gratz's History. Vol. xi., pp. 320-21 andJ33-L 



34 



One of the Missouri regiments was principally composed 
of Jews. One-half of the line officers of the sixth New 
York regiment were Jews. The officers of Col. Einstein's 
Philadelphia regiment were mostly Jews. Generals Lyon 
and Newman, who fell on the field of battle, were Jews. 
The American Jews displayed a laudable readiness in 
responding to the call of their country for its protection. 
"Everywhere in the loyal States they had come nobly forth 
among the very first to offer upon the altar of the sacred 
Union their might, intellect, treasure, and, if need be, their 
very heart's blood." "No body of citizens surpassed us 
Israelites in the devoted love for this glorious Union, in fer- 
vent patriotism, and the firm determination in its defense 
6 to do or to die.' " There were out of half a million men of 
the Union army not less than five thousand Jews in active 
service. They enlisted in the same proportion with the 
rest of the population, not as Jews, but as free and equal 
citizens of this Republic. They were largely represented, 
not only among the privates, but also among the commis- 
sioned officers. 

Moreover, many of the Jews who were then sworn in for 
the war were mechanics with large families to support, which 
they had to commend to the charge or charity of others^ 
whilst they would be absent on their highest duty to their 
country. Was this no patriotism ? If not, will Prof. Smith 
be kind enough to define what else it was? Or will he not 
rather change his prejudiced mind and do us justice again by 
allowing us the same love of country as other races, even the 
English, after reading the following account of a Jewish par- 
ticipant of that civil struggle ? "Here, in the forests of Vir- 
ginia, are the descendants of the Hebrew patriarch Abra- 
ham ; behold them now in the New World shedding their 
blood for the maintenance of the liberties secured to them by 



35 



this Republic ; and that while thus reflecting, he had heard 
some of his brethren utter the old Jewish declaration of 
faith: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." 

This touching instance at the same time answers Professor 
Smith's query as to the political bearing of Judaism, and what 
are the relations between country and race in the mind of a 
strict Jew. Judaism teaches gratitude to whomsoever it is due ? 
and the American Jews proved their heartfelt gratitude for 
their civil and religious equality, which, throughout the 
Union, is the unquestioned right of every citizen, in helping 
to defend their country to the last moment, Judaism teaches 
the Unity of God, and therefore a strict Jew will profess it 
even on the battle-field. Judaism teaches fraternal good-will 
to all fellow-beings; therefore, a strict Jew readily joins 
with his Christian brethren in furthering the welfare of the 
community. In times of peace or war he is, by virtue of his 
religion and modern education, as good a subject and citizen 
as any one else. This proposition ought to "convince " Pro. 
fessor Smith and make him " cease to cling to the miserable " 
prejudice that Judaism is a religion of race and tribal. If 
the Jew have tribal affiliations, they do not prevent him 
exercising his various duties to the commonwealth of which 
he is a member. No tribal relations whatever were con_ 
sidered by the American Jewish soldiers of both armies. 
The Confederate Jew, defending the cause of his section, saw 
in his co-religionist of the other side, had he even recognized 
him as such in the heat of battle, but a foe whom he held it 
his patriotic duty to conquer ; and so did the Jew of the 
Union forces. The ruling motives of all the Jewish soldiers 
in both armies were exclusively those which actuated every 
other patriotic American. This will readily be acknowledged 
by all Americans living. And the General-in-Chief included 
certainly in his praise to the Union soldiers, on dismissing 



36 



them, June 2d, 1865, the great number of Jews who had also, 
" in obedience to their country, left their homes and families, 
and volunteered in her defense." They were among tho^e 
who, "by their patriotic devotion to their country in the 
hour of danger and alarm, have maintained the supremacy of 
the Union and the Constitution." 

And what the American Jew was and is capable of, should 
not the English be ? Is he of a different nature ! By no 
means. Only a morbid hatred of our race could have dictat- 
ed Prof. Smith's disparaging opinion, that it is beyond the 
legislator's power to make patriots of the English Jews. It 
ever and everywhere depended solely on legislation to make 
the Jews love their country. The ordinance of Edward I., 
banishing all the Jews from the English soil, could certainly 
not have inspired them, with love for it. The 16,511 wretch- 
ed Jews who were on the 31st of August, 1290, pitilessly driven 
from a country inhabited by their ancestors as far back as the 
eighth century, if not earlier, could no longer be attached to it 
and its monarch. Nor even was it reasonable to expect from 
those Jews who, by the connivance of the rulers came into 
London in the latter part of the seventeenth century, to be at 
once warm patriots. They had to pay dearly for such tolera- 
tion which allowed them only to live there as isolated stran- 
gers, without the right to purchase houses or practise profes- 
sions. 

To make them patriots it was necessary to make them citi- 
zens first. As our venerable Cremieux remarked once : " If 
you persecute, you make slaves; only by declaring equa^ 
rights for all you will make good citizens." Nevertheless, 
the third generation of those Jewish settlers who were natives, 
and more so the fourth, being purely English, felt themselves 
as Englishmen. They were grateful for the scanty tolera- 
tion they enjoyed, and proved themselves " zealously national 



37 



already in the reign of George I., firm adherents to the 
Protestant succession/' 1 

The naturalization act followed in 1753. It was strenu- 
ously advocated by the liberal ministry of George II. But 
the opposition was too strong to carry it into effect. It was 
repealed by the next session of Parliament — " a sacrifice to the 
bigotry of the populace." 2 And, let us add, to their narrow 
jealousy. 

It is true, the religion of the Jews had ever alarmed the 
English fanatics. In the council held by Cromwell on their 
re-admission, the invited preachers were fiercely opposed to 
it, on the ground that Judaism might once become the estab- 
lished religion. 3 In 1703, but a short time after their silent 
re-admission, when under Charles II., in 1663, 4 there resided 
altogether twelve Jews in London, an anonymous appeal to 
the*clergy was issued, denouncing their toleration as illegal 
the laws banishing them having never been repealed. 5 And 
so late as 1841, in the parliamentary debate on the Jews' 
Declaration Bill, Sir Robert Inglis expressed his fear that, if 
it were passed, it would unchristianize England. 6 

It was alleged again and again, also by E. W. Gladstone, 
that the Jewish disqualification was due to their religion, 
Christianity being part and parcel of the law of England. 

We are unable to ascertain whether any or how much of 
narrow jealousy was mixed with the outspoken prejudices of 
those objectors to Jewish emancipation. We only know 
that it was ever prevalent in England. Their religion was 
often but the pretext put forth to lessen the odium of the 
meanest prejudices against them. The above-mentioned 
anonymous writer, arguing against those favoring their 

1 Christian correspondent, Jewish Messenger, May 30th, 1862. 

2 Hannah Adams, History of the Jews. 3 Toyey, Anglia Judaica. 
4 lb. 5 See Jewish Messenger of 1861. 6 See Orient of 1841. 



38 



re-admission because of their commercial activity which 
promotes English trade, said it was " certain that none but 
kings and princes and their favorites ever gained by the 
Jews. They do boldly presume to engross the principal 
part of our trade now . . . and have outdone our English 
merchants." And the opponents of the Naturalization Bill 
in 1753 argued in the same strain that, if they were admitted 
to the rank of citizens, they would engross the whole com- 
merce of the kingdom. 1 

Neither of these anticipations, however, came to pass after 
their actual emancipation. Judaism did not become the 
established church of England, nor even shake the pillars of 
the present one, and the few Jewish establishments in Eng- 
lish cities by no means drove the merchants of the Christian 
creed to poverty. The number of the English Jews, about 
18,000 up to 1841, was altogether too insignificant to incite 
any grounded fear of their overwhelming influence in matters 
of religion, politics, and trade. Their small number was the 
cause rather of their just claims being so long disregarded. 
Had they been as numerous as the Catholics or the Dissent- 
ers, they would have won their rights at a much earlier 
period. The government could not have ignored the threat- 
ening power of millions of oppressed people without 
apprehending serious injury to the crown and constitution. 
The comparatively, few Jews, however, could exercise no 
mighty pressure upon the ruling power, therefore their full 
political equality was deferred from one decade to the other. 

The noble courage of the great Macaulay, of Lord John 
Russell, aud some other unbiased champions of humanity, 
was required to remove one disability of the Jews after the 
other. When it was argued against them, that they are 
more attached to their nation than they are to the people of 



1 Hannah Adams, ib. 



39 



England, Macaulay refuted this argument as unfair "till we 
have tried the experiment whether, by making Englishmen 
of them, they will not become members of the community." 1 
When it was objected that the Jews look forward to the 
coming of a great deliverer and that, therefore, they could 
not heartily be attached to their present country, he rejoined: 
"Many Christians believe that Jesus will reign on earth 
during a thousand years ; according to some the time is close 
at hand. Are we to exclude all millenarians from Parliament 
and office on the ground that they are impatiently looking 
forward to the miraculous monarchy which is to supersede 
the present dynasty and the present constitution of England? " 
The truth is that bigotry will never want a pretence." He 
held further, "there is nothing in their national character 
which unfits them for the highest duties of citizens." 2 

Such cogent arguments, one should expect, must have 
stopped the cry of the fiercest opponents of the Jewish 
cause. It took, however, fully eight years more until their 
admission to civil and municipal offices became a law, April 
1st, 1841. In that session of Parliament, Macaulay again 
defended their rights manfully, calling " on every gentleman 
who thought the Jews competent to discharge the duties of 
municipal officers to vote for this Bill." 3 His efforts were 
this time crowned with success. The majority of the 
members had " enlightened toleration " enough to vote in 
the affirmative. 

The natural consequence was to relieve them from all civil 
disabilities whatever, permitting them even to enter Parlia- 
ment. After seventeen years of additional struggle, they 
obtained also this privilege, in 1858. 

1 Speech in the House of Commons, April 5th, 1830. 

2 Speech on the Jewish Disabilities, April, 1833. 

3 Speech on the Jews' Declaration Bill, March 31st, 1841. 



40 



That year ended their practical persecution. For, as 
JIacaulay properly said, " persecution it is to inflict any 
penalties on account of religious opinions." There is 
certainly no more humiliating penalty for a citizen than to 
be denied the right to hold office. 

Now comes Professor Smith, after twenty years have passed 
since the English Jews were granted political power, and 
charges them with misdirecting it in conjuring up political 
danger to the country, and decries all of them as unpatriotic 
for the imaginary wrong of a few representatives ! Now 
comes Professor Smith leading " that new-fangled class of 
our Liberals who ask themselves whether Jews can be 
patriots." 1 And now the Jews are " suddenly declared to be 
worthless strangers to the land — solely because many of 
them uphold the views which the best English statesmen of 
all parties had hitherto maintained." 2 Is this not cruel on 
his part ? Is it not cruel to impugn the past patriotism of 
the English Jews, so often acknowledged by truthful Christ- 
ians, because some of them hold diverse political views and 
advise diverse measures at a crisis in their common country ? 
Though it cannot be disputed that they have "on several 
trying occasions laid on the altar of public safety noble 
sacrifices of their lives and their fortunes," and that the 
blood of Israel profusely flowed in the fields of Waterloo," 3 
what matters it ? " The Jew must be burned," as the 
Patriarch said to the Templar in Nathan the Wise, or at least 
branded with the suspicion of Jewish and plutopolitan 
motives in all his public actions. 

The enemies of the Jews will never acquiesce in their liber- 
ties. They will continue to misjudge the Jews' relation to the 
community, and doubt their devotion to it. As one who was 



1 Westminster Review, July, 1878. 2 lb. 

3 According to the above correspondent, Jewish Messenger. 



41 



unsuccessful in an enterprise, or defeated by a rival in a canvass, 
is apt to make his subordinates or even his family suffer for it 
by peevish conduct, so would they make the Jews suffer for 
every misfortune or defeat of the community. They do not 
shrink from charging upon them all the perils of a crisis into 
which it has fallen by a combination of causes imperceptible 
to the unreasoning brain of the masses ; and how easily are 
these excited into the belief or pretext that the Jews, that 
peculiar people among us, the deadly enemies of Christ, have 
wrought all this mischief! This was, indeed, the practice in 
the Middle Ages, and it is so still. It was the outcry of many 
German literati raised against the Jews at the conclusion of 
the late Franco-Prussian war, in which thousands of Jews had 
nobly participated. Many of them had died a glorious 
soldier's death, in reward for which those favorites of the 
Muses sought to rouse and excite the common people against 
their Jewish compatriots. 

Alas ! reward for services rendered to the community was 
ever very miserly, or rather miserably, portioned out to the 
Jews. Those of Prussia had, in 1813, readiiy responded to 
the summons of the king. They strove to show their thank- 
fulness for the gift bestowed on them a short time before. 
It was the edict of March 11th, 1812, declaring them as 
native citizens with equal rights and liberties, even the right 
to municipal offices, and to teach in public schools and 
universities, reserving only their admission to other public 
offices to after-legislation. 

This was a rather fair precedent on the part of Frederick 
William. In return for it, the Jewish young men were 
among the first answering his appeal to come forth and 
defend the fatherland. Their service was gladly accepted, 
not the least objection being made on account of their reli- 
gious creed. 



42 



How was it rewarded after the French conqueror was 
overthrown, and all dangers diverted ! Not long after the 
splendid victories of the Allies, in 1814, the king retracted, 
first silently, then openly, the privileges granted the Jews in 
the period of distress and humiliation. 

First it was decided that the edict of 1812 was not to 
apply to the reconquered or newly-won provinces. Again, 
the Jewish invalids, returning home from the battle-fields, 
where they had redeemed the Jewish honor with their 
blood, were denied any public employment, 1 in violation of 
the solemn pledge made before the war to the whole people 
that the government would provide suitable positions for 
the disabled soldiers. The Jews were henceforth excluded 
even from the office of surveyor and commissioner of auctions, 
under, the pretext that these were state offices, the admission 
to which was in the edict left undecided. 

The just hopes of the Jewish young meu preparing for an 
academic career were cruelly betrayed. They could get no 
appointment as teachers and professors unless they submitted 
to baptism. An ordinance of 1822 repealed the respective 
franchise guaranteed to them in that edict, and so the fate of 
the ablest Jewish students was sealed. They were, in the 
whole Prussian monarchy, not even allowed to be druggists. 
In this way the king kept his promise! Such was the 
reward for their various sacrifices to the country. 

In the provinces that were formerly under French rule, 
the Jews did not fare much better. Although an instruction 
was issued in 1830 that the condition of the Jews in the new 
and regaiued provinces should, until further action, remain as 
it was found on retaking possession of them by Prussia, they 
were nevertheless even there not allowed to hold office, serve 
as jurors, practice law, or be druggists. 



1 Ministerial decree of 1826. 



43 



Their liberties entering into the large kingdom of West- 
phalia with the French officials, in 1807, disappeared after 
the glorious year 1814. 

So it was also at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. The Jews 
there, in an address published in 1832, complained as fol- 
lows : " In the war called by them (the despots) the war of 
independence, we, too, have borne arms. Before that war, we 
of Frankfort, as everywhere else in Germany where the French 
law was ruling, enjoyed equal rights with our Christian fellow- 
citizens. When we returned from the battle-fields, however, 
we met our fathers and brothers, whom we had left as free 
citizens, again as serfs, and such we have been until to-day. 
They have assumed over us the right of the pest, viz., to 
diminish our population, as they do not let us contract more 
than fifteen marriages a year, though we number five thou- 
sand. They now advance against us that we came from the 
Orient and were strangers in the land, and that we considered 
even our Christian countrymen as such. However, this is our 
creed, this the doctrine inherited from our fathers : When God 
created the world, he created man and woman, not master 
and slave, Jews and Christians, rich and poor." Borne wrote 
in 1819, " After the overthrow of Xapoleon, the Jewish liber- 
ties were here and there decried as pernicious to the state. 
The Jews were also suspected of being friendly to the French 
dominion. Their peculiarities were such that their haters 
would not tolerate them as citizens. Only Germans, such as, 
according to Tacitus, came forth from the woods with red 
hair and light-blue eyes, were in their opinion entitled to 
civil rights, whereas the dark-complexioned Jews contrasted 
too disagreeably with them." 

This sarcastic utterance of his was the melancholy outcry 
of a member of the suffering race rather than a wanton 
reflection upon the ruling one. " He was born a slave, 



44 



therefore he loved freedom more than they," wrote he at a 
later period. He became indeed a sturdy and fervent apostle 
of freedom, in a country where despotism ruled supreme. 

The oppressed Jews, it is true, could find some comfort in 
the similar sufferings of the entire German population ; and 
to win them rights was to the Jews no more than the right 
to share in the endurance of wrongs. Their grievances, 
however, were increased by the popular hatred and contempt 
under which they were yet smarting. 

The German Jews had to struggle long and hard till they 
obtained equal rights. Their participation in the wars of 
independence availed them nothing. Nor was their military 
service which followed, of any considerable benefit to them. 
The before-mentioned Gazette has put their number enlisted 
from 1814 to 1842, at 3,314. Notwithstanding this respect- 
able showing for a still persecuted class, their advancement 
in military rank was a very rare occurrence. 

The wild year of the revolution, 1848, brought them some 
relief. The Constituent Assembly at Berlin had declared all 
civil and political rights independent of any religious denomi- 
nation, whereby the Jews also gained their liberties. These 
were even acknowledged by the constitution of 1850. But 
the subsequent reaction overturned this beneficial re- 
sult ; so they had to fight again for their rights. They did 
so persistently till at last, in 1869, the law of the Xorth 
German Confederacy relieved them from the mediaeval yoke 
they had so long borne. Their full political equality in all the 
confederate German states was now a sanctioned law, though 
by no means an accomplished fact. God knows when the 
time will come for that. The Teutonic race will not so soon 
cease their pandering to mediaeval prejudices against the 
Jews. 

The German Jews have since then, in the Franco-Prussian 



45 



war, evinced their love of country in an unexampled degree. 
Philippson, in his " Memoirs of that war for the German 
Israelites," states that in this national rising the Jews took 
an ample part. Besides the conscripts and regulars, there 
served in the united German forces a large number of them 
as volunteers. Among these, there were young men who 
had come from Holland and England, even from America 
and Cairo, to stand by their offended and imperilled father- 
land. That indefatigable journalistand author collected a list 
of the Jewish-German soldiers participating in the campaign 
which resulted in showing their number at 2,531 men. 
Considering that this list was but the first of a series to be 
published after he would have received more complete 
reports, and that none at all were sent him from the largest 
Jewish communities, as Berlin, Breslau, Posen, Frankfort, 
no one, not even Professor Smith, will deny this to have been 
well proportioned to their relative number in the country. 
Cannot the Jews then be patriots ? 



